who were marching
to its relief.

"He took part in the siege and capture of Marienburg and in the defeat
of the Poles at Dirschau. He was with Leslie when last year he defended
Stralsund against Wallenstein, and inflicted upon the haughty general
the first reverse he had ever met with. Truly Hepburn has won his
honours by the edge of the sword."

"Wallenstein is the greatest of the Imperial commanders, is he not?"
Farquhar asked.

"He and Tilly," Munro replied. "'Tis a question which is the greatest.
They are men of a very different stamp. Tilly is a soldier, and nothing
but a soldier, save that he is a fanatic in religion. He is as cruel as
he is brave, and as portentously ugly as he is cruel.

"Wallenstein is a very different man. He has enormous ambition and great
talent, and his possessions are so vast that he is a dangerous subject
for any potentate, even the most powerful. Curiously enough, he was born
of Protestant parents, but when they died, while he was yet a child, he
was committed to the care of his uncle, Albert Slavata, a Jesuit, and
was by him brought up a strict Catholic. When he had finished the course
of his study at Metz he spent some time at the University of Altdorf,
and afterwards studied at Bologna and Padua. He then travelled in Italy,
Germany, France, Spain, England, and Holland, studying the military
forces and tactics of each country.

"On his return to Bohemia he took service under the Emperor Rudolph
and joined the army of General Basta in Hungary, where he distinguished
himself greatly at the siege of Grau. When peace was made in 1606
Wallenstein returned to Bohemia, and though he was but twenty-three
years old he married a wealthy old widow, all of whose large properties
came to him at her death eight years afterwards.

"Five years later he raised at his own cost two hundred dragoons to
support Ferdinand of Gratz in his war against the Venetians. Here he
greatly distinguished himself, and was promoted to a colonelcy. He
married a second time, and again to one of the richest heiresses of
Austria. On the outbreak of the religious war of 1618 he raised a
regiment of Cuirassiers, and fought at its head. Two years later he was
made quartermaster general of the army, and marched at the head of an
independent force into Moravia, and there re-established the Imperial
authority.

"The next year he bought from the Emperor Ferdinand, for a little over
7,000,000 florins, sixty properties whi